Robbz: Hello, everyone. I'm too under the weather to put cool music and make this sound good. So if you're in the Minnesota area, come to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota Buck Mills Brewery. It would be this weekend, the 15th. Check it out on the aquarium guys Facebook page. We're doing the fish swap for our local club. We're calling it a fin dig. Certainly check us out in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, October 15 for a fin dig. And always support our sponsors like Shrimp Envy.com. Use promo code Aquarium Guys at Checkout to get 10% off. Each purchase. Helps keep the podcast going and maybe buy me some damn nightquill. More importantly, episode 100. I know we say thank you in it, but we really do love you. Someone tripped me into that podcast.
Adam: There'S.
Robbz: Welcome to the aquarium, guys. Podcast. Holy crap. Episode 100.
Jimmy: I can't believe I haven't killed you yet.
Robbz: I mean, there was a bit of violence in a couple of episodes. They weren't here for that. But I'm your host, Rob Zolson.
Jimmy: I'm Jim Colby.
Adam: And I'm Adam El Nashar.
Robbz: Well, gentlemen, we're together. It's episode 100. There's no guests. It's us with open microphones. Should we start with some fan mail and then get into our meat and potatoes?
Jimmy: Yes. Let's hear some fan mail.
Robbz: All right. So on Facebook, they actually messaged directly into the Aquarium Guys saying, hey, love the podcast. This is I'll give his first name, Stuart. I have a quick question for a recommendation. I'm in Minneapolis tonight, and I'm looking for things to do while my wife and daughter go to Taylor Swift. What are the best fish stores that I should hit up this afternoon or evening? Thanks.
Jimmy: King of Diamonds.
Robbz: King of Diamonds.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Robbz: Not fish smells, Jimmy. It's a little different for reasons I don't care to explain right now.
Jimmy: It's my favorite place to go to in Minneapolis.
Robbz: Is it now? Chick chick boing boing chick a chick boing boing.
Adam: So recommended, Phil, but he's closing.
Robbz: Yeah. Tamed Waters, unfortunately, is closing due to landlord shenanigans. He's finally given up the landlord, and they're giving him a forced renewal, so he didn't find a property in time. So he's closing up, at least for but my favorite place is Riverside Aquarium. I think I'm saying that view Riverside. It's a newer aquarium shop. Now. I'm going to look it up. Hold on here.
Jimmy: Yeah, I saw that last week when I was over there.
Robbz: Riverside Aquarium, Minnesota. River Shore. Look at me. That was terrible.
Jimmy: You suck.
Robbz: I remember the place. The name completely slipped me. It is again. Minneapolis River Shore Aquariums. It is almost like a fish aquarium. Nano Aquarium Boutique. You go in there, there's studio lights. It's a very much a modern, funky hipster vibe. You go in there and they have these workshops on how to set up your nanotanks. It's a fun experience all the way around.
Adam: Text me the address, because I'm going to go there next time. I go to the cities.
Robbz: 6015 lindale avenue, south minneapolis, minnesota. Riveting on shore aquariums.
Jimmy: That's fairly new, isn't it?
Robbz: It's very new.
Jimmy: I just saw it. But I was on Minneapolis last week, going again next week and I was looking for stores near where I was at and that one popped up. I did not go though.
Robbz: Definitely go. Rivershore Fish is the website. And then you were saying yep, that's.
Adam: A that's that should be a staple for everybody that's in Minnesota. That's one of the main stores everybody should hit just because it's such a nice store. It's so big. There's so many fish to pick from. I think they added a new stingray wall. That's what it looks like. I haven't seen it but in person. But the stingrays will literally come out of the tank so you can pet them.
Robbz: You know, I am a bit biased.
Jimmy: Walk across the room and shake your hand.
Robbz: Right? I'm a bit biased. My local fish stores deeds Fish for obvious reasons of helping start it up. But I gotta say, Forest Lake is the best place in all of Minnesota to go for your aquarium needs. Hands down. Like there isn't better.
Jimmy: And here's the nice thing about it's. As far north in the Minneapolis metro area that you can go, it's in Forest Lake, Minnesota. And right next door, domino's pizza. I'm just saying you can get yourself a pizza on the way. Jimmy.
Robbz: Jimmy. No. There's a white castle just down the road. No, why would you do that?
Adam: He doesn't want diarrhea.
Jimmy: Exactly.
Robbz: Burgers. You get the chicken sandwiches. Those are the things that mini sliders. But they're chicken and they're good.
Jimmy: You know why they call them sliders, right, Rob?
Robbz: Because they slide right out of my that's right.
Jimmy: I enjoy we do Carboni's pizza in Force Lake also, which is very good. And that's my wife's staple where she loves to go because she grew up on it and stuff.
Robbz: Otherwise you can see Joe shrimpshack. I think sea life is definitely still around. Sea level. That's what it was called, sea level.
Jimmy: Are you just at Joe's?
Adam: Yeah, I saw Joe a few weeks ago. A couple weeks ago?
Jimmy: I have not seen Joe since the show. I've talked to him a couple times and stuff. We should go over there and rate his place and drink his beer.
Adam: We should.
Robbz: There you go. All right, next question. This is an email from Kaden. Hi, aquarium guys. I'm Kaden from Southwest, Minnesota. I love the podcast. I was just wondering where I could find the information about expos and auctions. Well, what's the most current expo auction coming up? I think when this is going to air will be probably in October. So the only one that I know of is the swap here. We're having Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. We're doing a we're calling it a fin dig.
Jimmy: A fin dig.
Robbz: We're calling it a fin dig. We're having a aquatic swap in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. You can check it out on what is the website? I have it close. It'll be in the show notes. Lakesaquariumclub.com. That's where you can find the club information. Go on Facebook to find the event. You can check out Dee's Fish. They have more information as well. They'll be there. There's a bunch of different vendors that is coming. Fernando's Aquatics, in fact, I can pull up Facebook and pull the list to see people coming from the event. But we have you're setting up a booth, Jimmy.
Jimmy: Am I?
Robbz: I mean, I'm assuming so. You were quite the sensation last time we did it. That's in fact, what the picture is of the event right then and there.
Jimmy: What's that?
Robbz: Pictures of people surrounding your booth. That's what we used for the event on.
Jimmy: That wasn't they weren't buying stuff. That was an intervention.
Robbz: Oh, that was jimmy, they were just.
Jimmy: Trying to get me quit buying fish.
Robbz: Jimmy, you need to stop this immediately, please.
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Robbz: All right, so so far as the recording of this podcast, the people that we have listed are tong's fish, room Friendly Fish, Minnesota, of course, the aquarium guys. Jimmy's putting up a booth. These fish co, Dean Greer, he's actually a pretty high end pleco breeder in our area.
Jimmy: He's one of our buds.
Robbz: Fernando's aquatics double D, aquarium plants.
Jimmy: I'm in SP.
Robbz: Aquatics Shrimp Envy actually is going to be putting up a big booth there and doing giveaways while supplies last. The first people come get free samples of shrimp food and naturals so that's asterisk that might be happening right now. J four has not backed out yet, so he's still on the list. And then Honcho aquatics So shout out.
Jimmy: To all these guys.
Robbz: Yeah, to our friends. And this is just what we have so far. People are still requesting spots, so hopefully this podcast will go out live before the event is over. But that's all we know right now. I think the Minnesota aquarium society just had their big auction, but definitely check out their website. They do auctions in the area. Otherwise there's not a ton of stuff happening.
Jimmy: Did the koi one happen already down there?
Robbz: That was the summer.
Jimmy: That was the summer they do that. You and I went a couple years ago and that was fun. I went this year and you went this year. I didn't go. I wasn't no, no, you were gone.
Robbz: I tried to invite I was gone.
Jimmy: Okay.
Robbz: You've been a party animal, a it's.
Jimmy: Been a long, hard summer on the liver, and the liver is evil and liver must be punished.
Robbz: I was wondering why you look orange. I thought it was just spray on. No, no, John, this is real.
Jimmy: No, I do have the spray on tan because I'm gonna go out as the scariest thing that I can think of for Halloween. I'm just going to spray tan go out of Donald trump scare the out of people. How about that?
Robbz: How about that?
Jimmy: How about that?
Robbz: All right, I think we're ready for the next one.
Jimmy: Oh, no, it's a long one.
Robbz: All right, so before I read this one, it was the last one, so I got to read it through. I have not read this, but we have had a bunch of other submissions for people that have submitted listener story time. We haven't done listener story time because, honestly, I'm not hating on you people, but your stories suck. Let's be real. Wow, it's a lot of depressive shit.
Jimmy: Take the seven fans we have and just crap on them.
Robbz: It's not that their story isn't relevant. It's just it's really depressing. Imagine you told people to come in and bring in your story time stories, and all they talk about is their dead fish. That's it. Crazy reaction. No thunderdome, no airline up the ass, nothing.
Jimmy: I told Adam, I said, I wonder how long it's going to take for Robbie to bring the airline up the ass story? And I think Adam said, like, 4.7 minutes. So I think you're right.
Robbz: And if you're wondering what we're talking about, I'm not telling you. You can go back and listen on your own.
Jimmy: Thank you, Jesus, for not telling us.
Robbz: All right, so Julius says, hey, guys, really enjoy listening to the podcast. Helped me get great ideas for my own tanks, and I love hearing the crazy stories. Also, here's my submission for story time. When I was growing up, my dad had a fish in the house. It was a weird Pentagonal Corner stand, so I'm not sure how many gallons. It was. Probably 45 or 50. We went through a variety of fish during my childhood. Guramis, African upside down cats, silver dollars that ate everything except the kissing gurami for five years straight. His name was Charles, and we didn't like Charles very much. Once the silver dollar died, my dad was excited to have multiple fish in the tank again. He went out and got some bala sharks. They were sleek and pretty, and the start of all the problems, they immediately got big.
Jimmy: The start of all the problems?
Robbz: The start of all the problems.
Jimmy: It wasn't the fish named. What was his fish name? The one before that died?
Robbz: Oh, Charles is still in here. Apparently, it's Charles. And now they have bala sharks. Charles is the kissing garami. So I'm trying to keep up here. But anyways, they immediately got big, and by the time they were five or six inches, they would race around the tank and slam into the front of the curve. I think there were originally six of them, and four or five made it to size. However, over time, they wore out the seals in the front panel and started. Okay, this is a decent story.
Jimmy: The fish wore out the seals.
Robbz: Yes. Over time, they wore out the seals of the front panel and started a huge leak in the tank. The tank itself was standing on a section of linoleum, and the rest of the room was carpeted. When the tank got to half full one day, dad scooped out the fish into a bucket, moved in the emergency tank, and set up the room for them to stay while he fixed the seals. I was upstairs when I heard my mother shrieking that the fish were on her carpet. They all jumped out of the bucket. She wouldn't touch them. And dad was trying to catch the last fish and SOP up the water. So when I got downstairs, it was chaos. These things didn't even fit in our nets anymore, and we were scooping them off the carpet by throwing back the bucket they would just jump out of. And finally we ran them to the room, wriggling out of our hands the whole way. By the time those fish died years later, they had popped the seals off two or three more times by doing laps and hitting the same spot in the tank.
Jimmy: I don't even know if I believe that, but that's a great story.
Robbz: That's pretty great. Well, I guess it's not big enough. They're not going to break it, and they're just going to put pressure on it by hitting the same she said the seal broke right where they hit. So generally those seals are top or bottom, so if they're hitting middle, you know it was the fish.
Jimmy: Jimmy I used to do drugs, too.
Robbz: I used to do drugs, too. Anyways, the tank went to the dump, and dad keeps much smaller fish now, so yeah. We look up the max size of the fish before you buy them, please. After all this drama, we went to the local aquarium, and they had a tank of full size balas on display, probably just to taunt us. Cheers, Julia.
Jimmy: Good for you, Julia.
Robbz: Julia, you have submitted the best story time submission, and I'm glad we got to read it on air thus far. So if you guys want to read them, we'll just read them like fan mail. We're probably not going to do a separate episode, but unless you come up.
Jimmy: With some really good stuff yeah, if.
Robbz: You all bomb us with a bunch of it, we'll do it.
Jimmy: But I want to hear some stuff like, hi, my name is Bob. I had a 14 inch eranda in my pants, and I went through customs and I got busted with it.
Robbz: That's the stuff.
Jimmy: That's what I want to hear.
Robbz: We don't want to hear how you just neglected your tank and they died. And what a horrible story, because that's literally some of the level of stories we've gotten from you people.
Adam: Well, that's just incompetence.
Robbz: Yeah, that's not fun. Yeah, we want to talk about how your Uncle Edgar fell asleep and Know dumped him in a tank outside with Know. That stuff like that.
Jimmy: Want to hear a story about my.
Robbz: Uncle GERB that got drunk and put his balls in the tank to try to get the catfish to bite him. That's a story.
Jimmy: No, my Uncle GERB was not my all right. My dad's Uncle GERB.
Robbz: Your dad's, uncle GERB.
Jimmy: Dad's Uncle GERB. So this is back in the dad and his sisters and brothers all lived on a farm, and Uncle GERB would come over and pay them money to do dumb things. This is before the Internet, people. This was his fun. He often paid all the kids to ride naked on the bicycle to the mailbox and back.
Adam: That sounds creepy.
Jimmy: Yeah, it is. But it gets weird. It gets weirder. So, anyway, the one day my can.
Robbz: We call him Uncle Touchy?
Jimmy: No, he was never touchy anybody.
Robbz: All right?
Jimmy: But the thing that disturbed me the most is that my dad tells a story about when I mean, a nickel back then was a lot of money, right? And my dad's brother Don, my Uncle Don came in and he had $0.15 that Uncle GERB gave him. And my dad goes, Where'd you get all that money? He said, Uncle GERB gave it to me. What'd you have to do, ride naked down in the mailbox on your bicycle? He goes, no. He goes, he paid me a nickel for every knuckle I shoved up the cat's ass.
Robbz: Oh, my God.
Jimmy: True story. $0.15, full throttle. But I just wanted to share that with you.
Robbz: Well, episode 100 is turning. Just kicking off. Great.
Jimmy: Just a shit show already.
Robbz: Okay, I have a real question now.
Jimmy: Yes.
Robbz: That was a real how do you define a knuckle? Because you have a knuckle in your hand. Like I'm holding up my index finger right now. Yeah. People say there are only two knuckles. Right. The base and the scent and the middle. This little one isn't a knuckle.
Jimmy: Oh, well, it was five cents. Ten cents. Fifteen cents. That's how I'm going to explain it to you. Okay. Lord knows, if you got a quarter out of him, I don't know what you would have had to do. Is my microphone all messed up?
Robbz: There we go. Now we fixed you.
Jimmy: I've been fixed.
Robbz: That is the worst 15 cent comment I've ever heard of.
Jimmy: I'm just saying.
Robbz: Hey, a question. Back then, Nicholas, on the payphone. How many phone calls was that on the payphone?
Jimmy: I don't know.
Robbz: All right.
Jimmy: It was kind of funny. How many years ago was that, that I was somewhere and I saw a payphone and I took a picture of it and sent it to you and Adam.
Robbz: Maybe he should have told him that 911 was free.
Jimmy: Free.
Robbz: Absolutely. All right, guys. Well, 100 episodes of this stuff. We originally created the podcast years back. Oh, man. Jimmy, when did we start this podcast?
Jimmy: I don't know. 1977?
Robbz: Yeah. People ask how we have pre COVID we started the podcast forever ago. And we wanted to do it because we found a bunch of information was getting lost or hidden because somebody was trying to keep it a secret. And if you're listening to this and you're a longtime fish hobbyist, you will understand the term that if someone has something that's nice, they want to keep it as a secret from themselves because they think it's monetary value. That is a number one in a fish hobby. If you're breeding something nice, you're not going to tell someone else how to breed it in your trade secrets because guess what? You're wanting to do a business out of it or you want to do a side hustle out of it. There's a lots of information from Generation Gaps. We used to have a lot more fish clubs. People were a lot more into the fish hobby before 911 prices and other declines in the hobby have been suffered and we've experienced a lot of different people, famous people, jack Watley we can go down a whole list of people that we lost. We just lost the president of Coral magazine recently. I mean, people don't live forever and a lot of these people didn't have the opportunity or platforms to put up their information. So that's what we wanted to do, is we wanted to share the little information we had and put up a pedestal for other people to share their information and have an evergreen library of episodes where, if you wanted to go learn something that you can look up an angel fish episode. You could go look a pleco episode, you could look up a filter episode, and hopefully we would bring information to the table or find experts in the field to share their knowledge in a hobby that's intentionally trying to suppress it. We can talk about some of our favorite episodes. That was how it started. Is the idea is great. We have this platform to put it on. And I invited Jimmy, which I know has dedicated all his free time in his life to this hobby and said hey, let's do a podcast together. He didn't really know what it was.
Jimmy: That was my question and we tried.
Robbz: The the first episode you listened to is US. That is our first cut. Basically unedited pilot.
Jimmy: Yeah, we didn't give a shit. Nobody was listening but us.
Robbz: We didn't care. And afterwards we lit up like this would work, this can work. And this could definitely be the platform for that. And we haven't stopped. We slowed down here and there when we had life problems, health issues, had a kid, but we don't.
Jimmy: How is your vagina?
Robbz: It's great. Stitches. We don't plan on stopping. We're going to continue. The pace will ever change depending on when we find editors. But it's been a wonderful passion of ours. We really don't make much money off the podcast. All the money that we collect from it would go reinvest into the podcast in other months when we don't make money, it comes out of our pocket to pay for it. Wouldn't be here without the people listening like you that have helped us through Patreons donations and support by spreading the word of the podcast is the bar none best way you can help us. But everything else has been greatly appreciated. You guys have been more than fantastic. But I'm going to get off my soapbox here and let you gentlemen mention a couple of your favorite episodes.
Adam: Can I go on my rant first? I have two.
Robbz: Yeah, I want to hear the Adam rant.
Jimmy: Let's let Adam's blood pressure explode just one time. I want to hear so what happened, adam, I know what happened. I know what happened to you. But what happened? This all came up in conversation because the other day I saw what was that a picture of a carp.
Robbz: I love how you're already knowing what he's going to rant about. That's my favorite part. Well, this is where it all started.
Jimmy: Because I had this picture of this five guys shoulder to shoulder holding a carp. And a carp is supposed to be 105 pounds if the average width of a guy is 2ft. This is a ten foot carp that we saw and just laughing, I said, I love photoshop and stuff. And then I asked Adamson, how many of these can you keep in a ten gallon tank? And he said six or seven with proper filtration. And then he went on his rant about this particular place, so I'll let him go with that.
Adam: All right, so first thing, I was trying to clean out my ten gallon tank and I needed one of those little miniature hoses because I have the big ones, but I just need the small one. So I went to the local feed store and I bought an Aqueon. And we're probably going to lose them as a sponsor ever, and I really don't care. Make better products. Aqueon. Here's what I ordered. I ordered the hose and I picked up the hose and it has this little thing that has a little flapper in it and it's self supposedly you just lift it up and down like you're jacking off and it will self suck and it'll drain into your tank.
Jimmy: Wait, did you say self suck?
Robbz: Hey, Adam, the only thing you're going to get self sucking is a place called Pure Pleasure or something like that. Or what was that?
Jimmy: King of diamonds.
Robbz: King of diamonds. That's where you're going to find diamonds is expensive.
Adam: But according to them, this thing is supposed to self suck. So I go, oh, I can do this.
Jimmy: So I put it in there. So Adam goes, I can self suck.
Robbz: All right, continue, continue.
Adam: So I do the little motion. I'm like, it's not working. The flapper thing does not work. That's my first goddamn problem. And then every 2 seconds. And then I'm like, well, I'll just treat it like a regular hose and suck on the bottom of it, and then that'll prime it and start it up. No, that doesn't work because it has a flapper in it.
Jimmy: Did you tickle the balls a little bit? No, I'm just asking.
Robbz: Come on.
Adam: No, it's to the point where I'm like, this thing is such a piece of shit. These things, it cost $9 and it should work. It's a hose. You literally put it in the fish tank. They've had these since the fish tank, and you drain it. It's that easy.
Jimmy: But how do you get it going?
Adam: Not this thing.
Jimmy: Tell the listeners how you get it going under the water. When do you jerk it?
Adam: Jack it off under the water. Because that's supposed to prime it according to the instructions that this thing gives you.
Robbz: If you guys are listening to this, I promise you, water changes are not gay.
Adam: This thing is the dumbest thing that I've ever seen. And then I'm like, they sell bigger versions. The small version works like shit. The big ones have got to be even worse. Literally, I have wasted money on lots of things. I have spent $8,000 on lizards and that have died of crypto. And that was a better use of my money than this $10. Aqueon hose aqueon makes some shit.
Robbz: Right now we have some listeners putting in a chat. They're feeling your pain and they want to know they have some help for you. They say, number one, cup the balls. Number two, open your throat.
Jimmy: Open your throat.
Robbz: We actually have a real question.
Adam: Garbage.
Robbz: We have a real question. PIBBLE punk wants to know how do I make my water changes more? Gay.
Adam: Gay er gay picture of Robbie behind the tank so that you can do the jackoff thing in his know while.
Jimmy: He has an airline up his ass.
Adam: While he has the airline up his ass.
Robbz: Yeah. I hate you all.
Adam: That's my first rant. I literally threw that thing.
Robbz: This is why we only have so many sponsors right here.
Jimmy: You know what's going to be funny is they're going to get a hold of us and saying, you're doing it.
Adam: Wrong what they do, because I'm going to tell them, okay, look, I know how to work a seat of prime to work an aquarium siphon. I've been doing that since I was like, twelve. And I know damn well I know.
Robbz: How to jack off Adam.
Adam: That isn't the problem, Adam. The problem is these things are garbage.
Robbz: Adam, can we please do a how to video of how to use Aquion water changers at your house? And we'll do it like the water.
Adam: Change thing does not do it like.
Robbz: We'Ll do it like John McAfee did for how to uninstall antivirus. We'll do it like you're pretending to do a line of coke. We'll do it all. Be there'll be bitches in the background.
Adam: This thing maybe I will literally go on their website and put a thing does not work. Not aquarium guy approved. So then I go and I see Joe. And I'm like, Joe, I need a siphon hose. Oh, look, we have a siphon hose right here. A little perfect one. So I buy that. It was like the same price as the Aqueon one. And it's that siphon clean brand. Oh, magically. It works and it drains just fine and everything's awesome. How do you take a siphon hose and make it worse?
Jimmy: It's been a while since you got laid high, Adam.
Adam: No, that isn't even my problem.
Robbz: It seems like you're really uptight, Adam.
Adam: No, I want a hose to work.
Robbz: Adam, please, can you calm down the Kombucha before the podcast? This is episode 100. This is when people are being like, these guys got their shit together.
Jimmy: No, we don't.
Robbz: They're going to talk about the good things, and then you're just bitching about jerking off Aqua on tubes.
Jimmy: Oh, it gets better. What did you do after that? Where did you go visit after that?
Adam: Went to Petco.
Jimmy: Oh, a big problem.
Adam: Number and two, I bought one gallon tanks for my kids'betas. And first of all, beta nut job people go yourselves. Jesus Christ. Betas can live in a little tiny cup for weeks. I don't need no beta nut job person telling me I don't know how to take care of betas. So I go to buy these little one gallon tanks at Petco.
Robbz: Adam is going to start responding to all the hate mail. So I'm going to forward it to your shit nut jobs. Because when I find the user nut job beta owner, I know it came from you.
Jimmy: Well, tell him about the great customer service you got.
Adam: So I went and I'm like I asked him.
Robbz: I'm like, hey, you returned.
Jimmy: He he went to go buy one gallon containers for his bettas for his kids.
Adam: For the kids.
Jimmy: And then the young man behind the counter was telling him how to take care of the beta.
Robbz: Adam, shut the up. The kid's trying to do he doesn't know you from sure that I can.
Adam: Have illegitimate children older than this.
Robbz: I get it. But there are people older than you that have never had a fish. The kid was doing his job, and you got to be nice.
Adam: No, idiot. Here's what he tells me. He tells me that I can't keep a beta in a one gallon tank because it needs 70% of the water changed daily or else it'll get ammonia burn in its gills and it will only live for a year. And that I need a five gallon tank to keep it in, to keep it happy. And I'm like, that's not how that works. And I'm like, no. So here's the best part. He's telling me this in front of the wall of betas and the wall of betas are all in little. Tiny cups.
Robbz: Hold on.
Adam: Every single little tiny cup is filled.
Robbz: Hold on. I'm going to defend that kid. I'm going to defend that kid. I understand that a real hobbyist understands how to do water changes to make sure it's a temperature. And they can use a gallon. And a gallon is acceptable for someone that knows what they're doing for the life of the Beta. Unless you're a Beta, he's dealing with dipshits that have never done it before, that will guarantee not listen to the instructions. And a five gallon kit is its only hope for a decent life. So that kid, God bless him, did the Lord's work, in my opinion.
Jimmy: When did he get put on commission? That's what I want to know.
Robbz: Commission.
Adam: I want to know.
Robbz: That guy was talked about right there.
Adam: Worst ever hard sell that I've ever had to deal with.
Robbz: Yeah.
Jimmy: I love it when they stand in front of their display of Betas in a court, even, what, a 16 ounce container? And they tell you it's unacceptable.
Robbz: Okay, here's what we got to do. We got to wait until Petco is like, there's no one there. And then we got to pretend a YouTube video a bit in the Petco department, where I come up, it's like, yes, I'd like to use this and hold a solo cup for a Beta. And then it's just a 15 year old trying to tell Adam, no, you shouldn't do that. And he's just saying, off, and we'll just do a whole video.
Jimmy: That'd be fun until the police come.
Adam: I wasn't even rude to the kid. I just looked at him and I go, that's not how that works. And then I'm thinking to myself, I know that I have more experience in the hobby than he's been alive. And this just bothered me.
Robbz: He's getting paid minimum wage. He's trying to make money for college, and then you're just there just to just shit on his parade, shit on his day.
Jimmy: I love it.
Adam: Okay, so I was in a good mood because I was like, Well, I'm going to help. Then I walked in on the conversation of this guy and this guy. Between the kid that barely has pubes on his face and trying to tell me how to take care of fish and this giant of a man. And I don't mean tall wise, I mean weight wise. You know that five that thousand pound lady that they have on TV every now and then?
Jimmy: Yeah. She's sexy.
Adam: Yeah, that TLC channel.
Robbz: All right. Right here. Adam. Okay, the forest gump of fish keeping just messaged us saying Adam yelled at a kid with ten minutes of video training. Powerful.
Adam: He didn't even yell at her.
Jimmy: He had ten minutes of training.
Robbz: He could feel the negativity coming from you. All right? Your yang and Yang were not mixing.
Adam: No, don't just listen to me. And all I wanted to know was if the price if they were on.
Robbz: Sale episode 100, and I can't even make it more perfect. This is what it's been for the last 100 episodes. We just had some guests along the way. It's been this, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Jimmy: I feel like I want to talk them off the ledge, but I kind of want to see him jump. Jump.
Robbz: No. All right. I've been messaged by some people. Okay, we got to get to their questions, so we'll do that. We also want to pick our favorite episodes. But what I like to do is just read through some of the episode titles and give some behind the scenes to people that have not known what went on for the background of those podcasts. That sound fun.
Jimmy: Most of us didn't know what was going on.
Robbz: We didn't know what was going on either. You guys show up and like, who are we talking to? And you're like, holy shit, I've been following that guy for years, and like, oh, my God, I get to meet him tonight. All right, so we have questions from people in Discord. Bless you. I have not been ignoring your endless rants. Please at message me if you're in Discord listening right now and you have a question. Start off. We have guys, love the podcast. Simple question for you. I'm putting together a US native biotope later this year. 60 gallon breeder, 48 inch by 18 inch by 16 inch. Planning on rainbow, shiners and flagfish to start with. Y'all got some ideas for Nas flashy Centerpiece fish for it. Well, if you're using native species, I would definitely recommend rainbow dace. I have rainbow dace in mine, and the males are gorgeous. They pop, and they are the centerpiece of my aquarium. Probably between those and the bosmani rainbows I got from you, Jimmy.
Adam: I do have a question. Can you transport native species cross state lines, or is it just dependent on the fish?
Jimmy: If you're going fast enough and it's.
Robbz: Dark, check your local laws and listings. We're not going to sit there and play the I don't know what Texas.
Jimmy: Does rule or drive fast in the dark.
Robbz: Yeah, be kind.
Jimmy: Just trying to help.
Adam: That's usually the best way to do.
Robbz: Things, let me tell you. I've done it and I ever asked questions, but I also bought them. I have papers. I did it right. I made sure they weren't invasive species, and I use common sense.
Jimmy: What about little Pygmy Sunfish? Those little Pygmy sunfish we saw this summer?
Adam: Those things are awesome.
Robbz: Not on the no no list according to the DNR here.
Jimmy: I like them.
Robbz: They're cute.
Adam: If they were, I wouldn't give a shit.
Robbz: They don't live in our native waters. They would freeze out, Adam.
Jimmy: But calm down.
Robbz: We understand that you're a rebel and you yell at children at petco. All right. Did you hit?
Jimmy: You should have hit.
Adam: I bit my tongue. I saved it for the podcast. You should have that anymore.
Robbz: You should have V eight clocked that bitch in the forehead.
Jimmy: You should have went over to the local hardware store, bought a camera, went over there, just broke everything.
Adam: I could have pulled the whole Ron Swanson thing. I know more than you.
Robbz: Who's Ronson?
Adam: I didn't even do that. I just said, I'll just buy these. I was very polite.
Jimmy: Or you could do the Lauren Boebert thing and go, do you know who I am? What is oh, you didn't see that? No, that was of our what was that? One of the hot representatives in Congress. And she went over to see a play and she was disruptive, told three times to shut up, and then she got escorted out of there.
Robbz: Adam, we're getting feedback. Your headphones are too loud or something. I turned it back on, but I haven't adjusted. You all right, adam's fixed. Do continue.
Adam: Jimmy the jack came out. Sorry about that.
Jimmy: Well, I suppose you started freaking having a heart attack over there.
Robbz: Mike, you were saying, Jimmy, about from the top.
Jimmy: You should have just said, like, the represent Lauren Boeber. You should just know, do you know who I am? When she got kicked out of the theater. Do you see that whole thing? I don't think she's a senator. She's a representative. She's pretty good looking, and she went to the Beetlejuice Drama. I mean, it's like a play. And anyway, during this, she's hooting and hollering, taking flash photography. She's taking and vaping during the show. And they've told her three times the gal behind her was pregnant and said, could you please quit vaping? You can't do this in the show. And she goes, Mind your own business. And anyway, they escorted her out, and on the way out, she's yelling, don't you know who I am? And if you haven't had a chance to see the video, you should, because everything shot from the top of her walking out, and she looks like a hooker on the way out. The whole way the way she's dressed.
Robbz: Well, the best comment we got from the audience just now is saying that she should have Paul Rubens in theater, and it would have been better.
Jimmy: I have my pitcher, I have my picture. God bless Paul Rubins. I love Paul Rubens. I got a chance to meet Paul Rubins once.
Robbz: And anyway, Louis CK. Has a career after jacking off in front of people. We should have given Paul Rubins the card before he died. He should have got back on the train.
Jimmy: I am going to find my picture. So after that happened with Paul Rubins, aka Peewee Herman, for those that are.
Robbz: Not formed with eighty s. Ninety s.
Jimmy: Culture, we were in Florida, and we went and had our picture taken in front of the movie theater where he did that.
Robbz: And this was supposed to be a Fish podcast.
Jimmy: No, it was good it was good. But I got to meet Peewee Herman because my old salesperson, Julie, it was a neighbor of her mom's, and so was Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira.
Robbz: Was that also the naked man happen?
Jimmy: That was the same trip.
Robbz: Yeah, same trip. So you got to be naked in front of Elwyn Segris.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Robbz: And then you also got to meet Peewee Herman and shake his and I had met Peterson. Huh.
Jimmy: You shook his hand. It was clean. Was it sticky? No, it was just kind of shaky, though. But Cassandra Peterson, Elvira, and Peewee were next door neighbors growing up all through high school and in the college and whatnot and stuff. And so I knew Cassandra Peterson for probably five years before I actually knew who she was, because I always knew her as Cassandra. And everybody around here knows what Elvira looks like, but Cassandra is a strawberry blonde.
Robbz: I like how you're getting choked up, getting bothered from thinking about her tits. All right, we're all there.
Jimmy: Oh, my God, I got to go to her house.
Robbz: Good. We're going to next question from discord again, if you guys want to join us in Discord, it's in the show notes the link to the discord. Otherwise, you can go to thequariumguyspodcast.com bottom the website discord. Hey, aquarium guys. I have a newly set up 75 gallon aquarium, completely empty, trying to figure out what to put in it. I have myself and two kids that all have opinions on what to put in it and a wife that doesn't want to spend our money at all. What do you think we should stock with it? Oh, if you really bait minnows no bait minnow really want to save some.
Jimmy: Money, just put the two kids in there.
Robbz: I mean, it is 75. You're going to drown those kids perfectly. That would work. No, but for real, if you're going to have some fun and you're on the absolute strictest budget, like, you have to put duct tape on the tank to create a lid. Rosy reds from your bait store. They'll do it for kids. They're cheap, they're hearty. They don't need heaters. They'll eat off flake food. They'll have some color, then they'll brighten up when they breed. That is the hobo ghetto way of I'm completely broke and I want something swimming. Rosie reds. And a school does look cool when you have some flow against them. You don't have flow. Then they look like they're just wishy washy in a bait minnow shop, but.
Adam: They'Ll all die within a week, and then you can buy new ones.
Robbz: Yeah. Trying to get catch up here with the comments. You guys have filled Discord this evening, so thank you for the support. Elvira, ten out of ten milk cup. OOH. That's disgusting. Jimmy knows about a lot of people who have done questionable things in theaters. Yes, he does.
Jimmy: Hey, if anybody that wants to go to the movies this weekend, let me.
Robbz: Know at Rob's, they could also catch their own. True. Minnesota has one of the most strict laws, and we still allow children under the age of 16 to collect native species and put them in an aquarium legally. So go outside, get a net, have some fun. That is a great tip there. DM. Pauls on discord.
Jimmy: The other thing I could say, too, is if you got yourself a net and it's dark out, you could go to your neighbor's pond and help yourself.
Adam: That always works.
Robbz: Go out. I only do that to your pond.
Jimmy: I know. You're a jerk.
Robbz: I only do that to your pond. Go out.
Jimmy: Get as many red swamp crayfish as you there's, as long as nobody's watching.
Robbz: That's god's lobster right there. God's lobster.
Jimmy: Lobster.
Robbz: Yeah, it is. You're not wrong right there. All right.
Adam: Are they illegal to keep in tanks in Minnesota?
Jimmy: Which ones?
Adam: The native crayfish?
Robbz: It's jaywalking, but yes. You're not supposed to take native species out unless you have a 16 year old in your household craywalking.
Adam: Like I listen to the DNR anymore.
Robbz: You have to have a baiter's license.
Jimmy: So if in doubt, buy a blue one, because that's illegal in Minnesota.
Robbz: There you go. And that's perfectly good to buy, actually, the red one. You'll get much more in trouble with the red swamp crays that are actually invasive here. Now. All right, quickly, you guys got an episode or two that you want to mention as some of your favorites, or do we want to go through the list and talk about a little behind the scenes action?
Jimmy: Behind the scenes.
Robbz: All right, starting from the bottom. Episode One Angel Fish that was again, we gave you a touch of that one. That was raw. Our first attempt ever sitting in front of a microphone, jimmy not knowing what the hell this was. And I told him, just pretend it's a radio show. Sits down, and honestly, we kill it. It wasn't perfect. You go back and listen to it and you can hear the quality change. Our mics got better. There's things that have gotten better, and some things have gotten worse over time.
Jimmy: Adam's ranting's gotten better.
Robbz: We were just surprised that we thought that this was going to be never shown. This was just us playing around, and we uploaded and started from there. We asked ourselves in the next know what's the most commonly asked thing, and that's live bears. So we did an overview topic. We did another episode of Fish industry and Aquarium misconceptions, and this is when our podcast started to get picked up from places. Apparently, having a combative tagline of misconceptions was big on Google Analytics keyword. We talked quite a bit about different things that we knew through the hobby that weren't correct or people misspoke on know betas eating plant roots from wherever that craze came from peacefully.
Adam: Plico's eating shit.
Robbz: Yeah, pleco's eating shit. And that is what really started kicking off a bunch of our listenership because it was the first actual controversial episode that we put out, even though it was not at all controversial and plenty of English. Then we had our first guest on Koi Farming with Greg Bickle, and he's still dear friend of mine. I still go down when I can to go check out the farm. We've purchased plenty of koi for the store through him and the zoo that I've worked with. And that really clicked on how we would format interviews going forward. Our first one went really well, and we decided to keep that same format as if we're going to talk about a know, try to find a subject matter expert. We talked with Steve Rubicki. I think it's one of your favorite podcasts. Next one doing a little bit further, talking about how they began to sell fish online. Because as what we can find out, he was probably one of the first, if not the first person to actually sell fish online.
Jimmy: Yeah. And I've known Steve for probably 20 years. Never met him face to face. We've talked to him on the phone a million times. Steve is so busy at this point now in his career.
Robbz: Well, he's also how old?
Jimmy: Oh, he's got to be Clinton into his mid 60s.
Robbz: He's been doing that his whole life.
Jimmy: Right. And he's the one that when you see a Corey Angel, he's the one that developed the Corey Angel.
Robbz: But anyway, Steve arguably there's a lot of people that emailed us about that as well. Yeah, he perfected it. He perfected it.
Jimmy: I think you're wrong. But anyway, now if you want to talk to him and he charges you per 15 minutes. So him to give us a whole evening with great advice. And he did spend a lot of time talking and answering questions of things that we never thought of. Different drugs and different things used on fish. Not drugs.
Robbz: What do you call no, he used the drugs too. And it was not on the podcast. It was hilarious.
Jimmy: What does he do for you in that 15 minutes? He charges you a lot of money, so whatever you want. I guess he'll talk to you.
Robbz: So between you and me, this point.
Jimmy: I'm not paying you any money.
Robbz: At episode six of the podcast, when we got to the Steve or Bickey podcast, jimmy was enjoying this, but he didn't see how this would catch on and how we would get traction. Well, I was the one because Jimmy's got a job that he works eight days a week at. And he's also at that time, still wholesaling a bunch of fish to different people. Again, his schedule is crazy. So all the background stuff, the calling of people, getting whole attachments, scheduling, all the podcast shit, the technical aspect, everything is on my plate, which is fine. That's what we agreed to at the beginning.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Robbz: And he shit his pants when he found out that we got Steve because he's got a big fat man crush.
Jimmy: For that man crush. Yes. Absolutely.
Robbz: Jimmy's number one favorite fish is angel fish. And this is the moment where Jimmy realized this is a serious this is a real podcast.
Jimmy: I couldn't believe people would talk to I mean, and give us their mean if some schmuck called me from Minnesota said, hey, we're doing a podcast. You want to talk about, go blank yourself.
Robbz: And Steve was real upfront. He know. I know, Jim. He's messaged me before. You seem to be really upfront with me. If I don't like anything, I'm going to have you cut. What I don't like, I'm like. This is what I'm telling him to give him options to make him feel more comfortable. He's like, yeah, we'll give it a try. And he doesn't talk to anybody. Like you said, you charge people money. Jimmy was just floored, and so much so that he wrote on his blog after it, giving us a recommendation and commandeerment on his website. And if we go to right now, angelsplus.com and where is it, the blog, we are literally the only person he's talked about outside of the angel hobby at all and gave a recommendation over. And why would you why would you take that your website that's just focused on selling angels and giving your expertise and funnel traffic to anything else but you? So for us, it's a real honor. It was a pleasure. We still have access to Steve if we got questions or need something. He's got fantastic angels. This is a little plug. Just say thank you to back to Steve. Go to angelsplus.com. You'll have to pay a ton of money, but you're going to get the world's best angels, period. And it was a lot of fun. That was when Jimmy took it serious. Yeah.
Jimmy: And just hearing about the amount of time he hasn't brought an angel fish into his nursery was like, for 25 years. 25 years. 30 years. And when he does bring in new stock, it's in a different building, and he quarantines them from somewhere between six months to a year. I mean, he's not messing around. He has got so much stuff going on over his place.
Robbz: If you couldn't tell what Jimmy's favorite episode was, that's probably one of them. Or it. Next one was beginners. A beginner's guide for starting a tank. By this time, we started getting a lot of fan mail. We started getting people are starting messaging.
Jimmy: Us and hate mail.
Robbz: No, no fan mail. And we started getting from all the beta net jobs. Yes. Anyways, we started getting people messaging us and acknowledging that we have a podcast. We're blown away that anybody listened to us at all. It was a bunch of people saying, hey, great deep dives. But, I mean, I'm a beginner. I don't know what I'm doing. What do I do to set up. It was just repetitive questions like we got tonight. Some of these questions we got tonight in Discord are from people that have done it a long time and just want no opinions because they're fans. But some people probably this is the first or second time they've ever started a tank and they need real world help. So we did a intro into Beginners Fish Tank and kicked off. Well, next was mass distribution of fish. People didn't realize, especially Beginner listeners, again, start targeting that Beginner audience did not realize what the cycle of fish was. Using an aquafina bottle in Singapore, getting shipped over, and walking the bouncing ball all the way until it gets into your aquarium. So that one. We got a lot of feedback saying thank you. No one will say a lot of things that you guys have said. No one will tell us about the toilet paper and paper towels that were used to ship Betas wet paper towel. It just showed that we're not here to make money. We're here to just share our passion. Good or bad stuff that can't be said on YouTube definitely started there. We were lucky enough to get Big Rich and Josh from Ohio Fish Rescue on number nine. We're talking about how they rescue fish.
Jimmy: Oh, we badgered them for a long time.
Robbz: Pakus are probably the worst subject for a fish that's bought small for $3 and turns into a garbage can lid in a matter of no time, and they live 20 years like that.
Jimmy: Big Rich turns into Adam, loses mine.
Robbz: Fantastic people. I'm so glad that we got to do a relationship with them. We ended up getting that episode. They were just kind enough to jump on. I literally just reached out because there was, in my mind, no better person to talk to about the impacts of rescuing fish and why it's a problem of which ones we buy. But we just reached out, haven't met them from Adam, and they were just, of course, happy enough to come on. And very funny they were seeing that we were already plugging out their organization for donations in a prior episode.
Jimmy: Tell them what you did. Tell them what you would say to people. You remember this, how this all started, you jerk.
Robbz: It's been so long. Help me out.
Jimmy: You would, you know, just call up these guys in the middle of the night and see the aquarium guys told you to call and freaking people did. Do you remember Adam?
Robbz: Okay. Okay.
Adam: I remember.
Robbz: That my favorite part.
Jimmy: That was you, by the way. It wasn't anybody but you at one.
Robbz: Point in time, if you wanted to listen to the Ohio Fish Rescue, you could go on. It was a know at one point, it was a small YouTube channel, and they were brash enough to put their cell phone numbers to the public on their website. And I'm like, you already put the number out. I'm not hazing you. So I just literally made jokes at the beginning of the podcast, like 02:00 a.m. Call Big Rich, he might answer the phone, if not leave a message saying the aquarium guy sent him. And that's basically from the laughs from that, because he did get a bunch of people calling him because we put out his actual cell number on the podcast, and they were nice enough to come on Giggle to the joke.
Jimmy: And if you ever want to follow somebody, it's a lot of fun. If you watch them on YouTube, they put stuff out constantly. They're constantly, constantly upgrading, upgrading, upgrading, upgrading.
Robbz: Right?
Jimmy: So if you want to see some cool stuff, these guys do a great job. And hats off.
Robbz: Right now I just messaged Josh. I'm like, come on, you got to come on the podcast and tell us all about I want the inside story on how you bred those paddlefish. He bred paddlefish in captivity in his backyard, all by accident. So I can't wait to see if we can get him on the podcast. He's a busy guy. Got a kid now, but still keep in touch. They still do live streams on Friday, and I'll check in every now and again. Next episode, we want to do a well, this is when we started. Now we have this relationship with Big Rich and Josh from the Ohio Fish Rescue. We started getting relationship with Steve or Bickey. We already had a bunch of our relationships with our other friends. Like you've been friends with people at Seagris for years. We have our network of people already, but our network's growing as we do this podcast. People are listening in, and people want to help us. So listeners would send information in. People like Big Rich and Josh would have, hey, you need to have these people on. And we got to listen to the story of Jim Kitchen. Jim Kitchen, they gave him a nickname, PlayCo King, on a lot of different YouTube channels. But Jim Kitchen really has dedicated his entire hobby space to studying pseudocanthicus. He is a person that has written a lot of scientific documents. He's spent a lot of time he's bred certain species of pseudocanthicus. The first person to ever do it in captivity, he was spent years doing it. Yeah, he was able to come on the podcast and do exactly what our podcast was intended for, was to give insider secrets that would eventually be lost. Because he doesn't have a platform, we were able to give him at least a platform for a little over an hour. And he gave us in that hour, fantastic information. If you haven't listened to this episode ten on placos, jim Kitchen, he's got the Parkinson's really bad. We didn't know if he could actually come on the it was probably the.
Jimmy: Longest podcast we ever did. I mean, we only got an hour's.
Robbz: Worth of I believe it's one of the last publications that he did because he can't go on YouTube. He doesn't want to be seen. He can't control different spasms on what happened. And we in the podcast, we edited it out. But there was times where he'd take breaks. We made that clear. We're going to do what we can to help you on Jim. He was very happy. We took a 15 minutes break in between time while he had to deal with a little bit, take another pill, whatever he needed to do, take a glass of water, walk around. And we were able to get a nice podcast out of him. It's harder to listen to, but knowing that he's got that disease, knowing that he has more to share than most people in the aquarium hobby, we're blessed.
Jimmy: We spent a good three and a half hours doing that.
Robbz: If I remember right, I went to Ohio during COVID and Big Rich and Josh, they knew how much that podcast meant to us. And I still have one of his handmade massive pleco caves for one of his pseudocanticus breeding projects. And this was the cave that he was successful to breed in. And I will cherish it forever. It's never going to leave my possession.
Jimmy: And that's the one that Jim had.
Robbz: Used, that's Jim made, Jim used. That was his cave. And he gave it to the Ohio Fish Rescue. And the Ohio Fish Rescue gave it to me because they know how much it meant to us.
Jimmy: And then the thing about that particular podcast, it was so wonderful when he shared up some secrets and he told us about the pleco caves and that if you do not have the correct clay, that the plecos cannot breathe in there and they suffocate. And he found that out the hard way, but it took him a long time. So if I remember right, I think he did finally get a hold of the local college to make pleco caves.
Robbz: Don't ruin it. They got to go.
Jimmy: Listen, this is just background we did no, you need to know that this guy gave us secrets and you need to check it out.
Robbz: Check it out. Episode ten. All right, all the cheat codes. Next one we did was tips, tricks and hacks. And this one I did not expect to, but this one to date is our number one most successful podcast is episode eleven. That's the one that still reels in most analytics is because that is the tag. Word is when people are in the hobby, they're looking for stuff they don't know and they're trying to find experts to tell them things they don't know. So we listed a ton of stuff in there. Still our one episode. Go check it out. There's things that we probably are going to do a second episode on this, like a redux on Tips, tricks and hacks because we started the podcast in September 19. So it's been. Quite a few years, and there's a lot more tricks we can add to that.
Jimmy: And Adam can tell you how to use the Aquian.
Robbz: That'll be definitely tricks, tips and hacks, that's for sure. I'm going to breeze calming down. I'm going to breeze past some of these. We don't have time. We could talk about episodes all day. Did a wonderful deep dive on African cichlids. We had a number. Episode 13, Discord Community. They came on, and we had just a group conversation live with our podcast, and we were just so blown away on how many fans we had only 13 episodes in. Thank you guys again for listening. Freshwater shrimp again, probably our second most popular episode. People die to get into the shrimp hobby. I don't understand clearly why people haven't got into it as far, but it's newer part of the hobby. It's only had, like, what, 2025 years of total hobby experience. So maybe that's why we want to do a series called out of the Tank series. And the idea was we wanted to teach people to incorporate and be friends with their DNR, not just ignore them or try to sneak away from their laws for their fish hobby. But DNR are there to protect our native species and make sure that our fish don't get into native streams and cause havoc so we don't turn Minnesota into a Florida. And we were so lucky. Out of all the things, this is the one I was in disbelief with, that the DNR would let an aquarium podcast we did that podcast on site at the DNR's biggest breeding facility in.
Jimmy: Minnesota, the Walleye Breedings Facility.
Robbz: Yes, they do. It right there. They invited us in. We were in their conference room and.
Jimmy: Super nice to us.
Robbz: Super nice to us. But the other DNR agents were very they gave us some weird looks, man. They knew that the wolves were in the chicken coop.
Jimmy: That's right.
Robbz: I'm just saying. But it was fantastic. Mandy's been on the podcast twice, right. And fun again. You want background details? They had baby sturgeon there that were fantastic. They were, what, six inch sturgeon in a tank that they were showing on display that came from some other breeding facility. They introduced, we found out, sturgeon into the Red River Valley.
Jimmy: They're quietly reintroducing it in several places and not really talking about it much.
Robbz: Right. It was a great experience. Now, the one thing that you wouldn't expect going to the DNR, which I guess in retrospect makes sense, is they have in their offices mounts from when before Minnesota was a state, from donations from people, stuff they've confiscated. They have skins. They have all types of trapper memorabilia. And that was cool.
Jimmy: At least a half an hour of our and. And they gave us a ton of information. They spent a lot of time with us, but they held out on the one secret that I wanted to know and I'm still not happy about it. Bigfoot, they will not tell me where Bigfoot lives.
Robbz: Bigfoot creating a fish room we talked about odballs was one that we did with Chris Biggs, the Mad Aquarist.
Jimmy: That was fun.
Robbz: Fantastic. Chris Biggs has definitely grown his career since then and the dude still is wonderful. If you message him, he'll pick up the phone, go check him out. I think he's about to do some sort of like creator clash with Joey Mullen. Check it out. And episode 18 is probably my favorite podcast. Barn on a story time.
Jimmy: Which one? Story Time.
Robbz: Story Time.
Jimmy: That's the first story time.
Robbz: If people join on the discord and they're like, hey, just started listening to the podcast, we tell them to go back and listen to episode 18. That is where the fun really begins that gets shared with so many different people. It's not the most popular because again Storytime isn't a catchphrase on Google but it's by far what we believe our best podcast is. We've had some great topics but check that one out. We started doing Christmas specials which we've had aquarium magazine, that's literally the topic. Episode 19 Aquarium magazine where we've had Matt Pederson from the Amazonus magazine and Coral magazine. He's been on multiple times. Going through here we put the extreme hobbyist reef tank. We're going over to our friend Sean Kramer by Brainerd, Minnesota and saw his 2000 gallon reef tank. And Jimmy is there anything that we can talk about that that 2000 gallon reef tank has been doing up to this day that we can tell people.
Jimmy: Over the microphone that Tank is putting his kids through college.
Robbz: All of his kids?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Robbz: What? Two full time employees? One and a half employees.
Jimmy: And anyway, what they're doing is they're doing some crazy exotic corals. They are then selling them to one particular group in Florida and then they go up for sale the following week. They are shipping fish in yeti coolers. They leave the Brainerd area at 06:00 at night in Minnesota. Here they are in the tanks in Florida by 09:00 a.m. In Florida and they ship out. So they're pulling corals out and shipping them every week down to this place in Florida. You can find them online and they're getting into some corals now that you're talking $5,000 a flake. Yeah. And some of the other stuff that they've gotten, the mother corals, they call them stuff. They're spending up to $25,000.
Robbz: So that was fun and that definitely grew since the podcast began. Talked to the next episode business tank building our aquarium screw ups which we started. More of the stories on how Adam electrocutes himself. More stuff about hating Jim's ex wife. If you believe for a moment that when you listen to these podcasts and Jimmy bitches about his ex wife that he doesn't do that in person, you're wrong. He does. It's not just for the know.
Jimmy: You gotta love to hate.
Robbz: Shout out to you. One of my favorites Victorian aquariums. We had Dr. Joseph Pollock. He came on if you look up Victorian aquariums and you see these cool pedestal aquariums, it's the ones that you see on TikTok or whatever. That's Joseph Pollock. He restored paid a lot of money for cast iron Victorian era aquariums, and he has pristine setups. If you haven't seen it, go to that episode 24. You can check out the link. The stuff that we can add to this is he has a lot of scientific journals and reviews published out of how corals are dying, and they're going to be replaced with sponges, barrel sponges. It's a little depressing, but definitely check out the information.
Jimmy: You know, that's something we should do in the future, is now with the amount of heat in the ocean killing the corals off the coast of Florida and whatnot we really should do a little retrospective of what they're trying to do to save the coral there. I mean, they've been out there harvesting crazy and pulling this stuff into aquariums because they're trying to save because all the coral is starting to bleach out and die because of the was it 85, 95 degree heat?
Robbz: Got to find a guest and expert DIY automation and printing. We talked to Brandon Schreiber. The background of that story that I can add to it again that you haven't heard before is that's when I probably perfected my what would you call them? Butt plug overflows. Jimmy, for those that are in Discord Dan's holding it up, that is a Rob's patented butt plug overflow. It's the best surface area for an overflow. I fill my tanks with duckweed, and this is the only overflow that I can use that doesn't completely clog up. So I've made those in inspiration of that episode. Go check it out. Project. Piaba. Piaba. However you pronounce it, there's a big meme making fun of me that I'm supposed to be speeding guys all saying Piaba Piaba, whatever it is. But that was the most difficult podcast that we've done to date. That man is a fantastic person as far as what he does, the passion he puts into his projects. But I'm not going to lie to you, it was a rough podcast to record. He was beyond nervous. And the amount of, UMS, mums spaces, things that we had to edit out. It took me four days to edit that podcast, and it turned out so good that it was worth every bit of our time. But yeah, shout out to Scott from Project Piaba Piaba, however you pronounce it, that was one of the best. After it was recorded, I could have asked for, but recording it was so bad.
Jimmy: Just a wealth of information about the fish coming from the wild and following it from start to finish, it was really quite impressive. I learned a lot of things that I had no idea that they were doing out there. So definitely check it out.
Robbz: Then we started to getting and realizing that we have tons of fan mail and we started answering your questions. We set up an email box. We found out we never checked it. We had a telephone number and a bunch of voicemails. So we just did an entire episode of fan mail questions by that time. That started a trend where we have really focused on your questions and what you guys want periodically. And later, did Dr. Fish excuse me, moving tanks and disaster prep. That came from listeners that actually background on that one. That came from listeners that had disaster during moving. So they wanted an episode on it. Pond tips and misconceptions. We were very lucky to get that. Greg, hold on. We were very lucky to get Greg Whitstock, the pond guru, the pond master himself on the podcast. And you want a little background on that one, you can probably listen to it. That was a favor called in. Big Rich was like, hey, you should talk to this guy. He's helped me rescue out quite a bit. He's a great guy. He's trying to really kick off his YouTube channel. It'd be great if you could reach out to him. Like, yeah, love to. I've been following the guy for years and got him on the podcast. And I know how amped that man gets.
Jimmy: Hold on, you have to hold on to that. I mean, he goes like a bad out of hell.
Robbz: Well, I purposely asked very frustrating beginner questions because I knew it would piss him off. And it did. And because of it, we had a fantastic interview. Greg still has I still have his cell number. If I message him, he'll still answer questions, he still contact with us and whatnot.
Jimmy: We went from zero to 60.
Robbz: But I thought for sure after that podcast, he would delete my number, you know what I'm saying?
Jimmy: Or kill you.
Robbz: Or kill me.
Jimmy: It was a great one.
Robbz: It was so much fun. There wasn't much edited out of it. So what you're hearing is, you're hearing, know, well spoken but clearly frustrated answers on that podcast. And I giggled for days. Check it out. Got Tint. We had Scott Feldman on, which has still his own podcast. And Scott is a joy, but he is impossible to get a hold of. We got him on the podcast. He did the podcast with us and I love his he's got 15 minutes podcast episodes and it's all got a little background music to it. And it's just him and his one thought that he had that day, it's off the top. It's completely uncensored. Some of them are him pissed off. Some of them are him just in the joy and the ambiance of the aquarium. Check it out. The tint is his podcast. I've been trying to get him back on for an episode multiple times. He's just so busy and spread so thin, but there's no background really past that to that one, other than if, you know, Scott personally kick him because we want him back on the podcast. We got the aquarium guys get overtaken the Ohio Fish Rescue. Unfortunately, Tracy Bigrich's wife fell ill during a lot of these episodes, and you can follow the health condition, but eventually found that she had some brain damage. And they've been dealing with it still to this day. And we were able, with some of our fans, to put together a GoFundMe for Ohio Fish Rescue during the time. And they raised, I think it was five digits into a savings for them. So they can help. I mean, it's a drop in the bucket when it comes to medical fees, but it definitely helped them out a lot. And they wanted to repay us in any way possible. And they're like, how could we? And I said, well, could you guys do an episode for us, take over our podcast and BS. And they took over an episode, and they had Chris Biggs on here, and they had predatory fins. I don't know if you guys have seen that YouTube channel, but they had predatory fins on, and it was little loosey goose and fun. But I'm so tickled that they got to do that with us. If you guys want to, you can still donate to the cause. They still have issues with Tracy. We'll have the link in the show notes, as always, food and nutrition. We were able to get cobalt aquatics on. That was very eye opening. I bought a bunch of cobalt after that episode. We had a big promotion with cobalt during the time, and they were a fun team to work with. And they even helped us do and record an advertisement right in the front with their own staff. So that's a little background tip there. That was a lot of fun. Aquarium jars. Probably one of the top episodes we've gotten complaints on. There is a whole group of culture of people that sir, that's a cup, not a fish tank. Group of people out there. Basically, the people that Adam was speaking of at the beginning of the beta nut jobs, the better nut jobs. Okay? And when we talked about having jars as an aquarium, buttholes have never been tighter. But I think what made it relevant is having Matt Pederson on the podcast talking about Peterson. It's with a D. Pederson.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's Peterson. Peterson.
Robbz: Peterson is peterson.
Jimmy: Peterson.
Robbz: Gentlemen, gentlemen. I have him in my that was what was texting.
Jimmy: That was actually one of my favorite episodes. When you couldn't say somebody's name, you kept effing it up that's every episode. Go back and listen to the podcast. Anytime Adam or well, not Adam so much, but anytime Jim or Rob's mispronounces something, I want you guys to take a drink until you're hammered, clearly.
Robbz: So regardless, we had Matt Peterson pederson on that podcast as well. And again, he's in charge of Amazonist magazine, and now he's also in charge of Coral magazine and having him go on the podcast. A world renowned expert in the aquarium hobby come on the podcast and say jars are awesome. Really gave a whole lot of weight to our argument. And you were our freshwater expert on that episode, Dan.
Jimmy: Expert air quotations.
Robbz: You still are an expert right now if you go in my bathroom. This is a background story. Dan and I met on the podcast known as Myrtlewood on Discord. Dan and I met on the podcast, and we've been friends ever since from the very beginning of the podcast. And now he's living here in Minnesota and working at the local fish store. So in my bathroom as we speak, there is like a one gallon saltwater aquarium right next to the shitter. And I'm not going to lie to you. Every time I sit down and take a dump, I take a couple extra minutes just to watch what's going on in that jar. So thank you for that. You are an expert in jars.
Jimmy: You're not taking a crap in the jar, are you?
Robbz: That's for Christmas.
Jimmy: All right?
Robbz: That's for Christmas. So if you want to get angry or you want to get motivated, check out jars Madagascar cichlids. I did not understand until this podcast how bad and endangered the cichlids are in Madagascar. Having that really exposed in the podcast was fantastic. Found more of the Facebook group. And yeah, that scares me that knowing that there probably won't be Madagascar cichlids for very long, or at least many of them unless we do something about it. I know that some fish are having issues, but if you're going to help a fish species, that's the one to get you motivated. And Dr. Fish started. So again, we're using our contacts and Seekers farms, we were able to get Dr. Fish on the podcast, do many different series. We're probably going to do another one with him soon. And all of our overwhelming questions on how people deal with fish health were all lumped into those episodes. If we got, hey, what is my fish doing and why we dumped it there. And we reached out, there was hundreds of questions in the series. And they were tickled with the results. We were tickled with the results. He's a lot of fun. Little fun fact. In one of the podcasts we do on Discord and the podcast live, but we don't record the video. It's only for us to enjoy live. And then you get only the audio for the podcast. And while we were there, Dr. Fish's wife came out in the background in a bra and underwear and panties.
Jimmy: And did best episode ever.
Robbz: Best episode ever. So if you were on Discord during that time, you got to see Mrs. Fish. And if you're listening to this, good on you. You know what I'm saying, jimmy, after I perked right up, she walked out of the room. He immediately reached for his wallet to pull out cash. So, you know, it was a good time. You know it was a good guy. Oh, he'll be back on. Don't you worry. He's not gone. We're going to get another one wrapped up here after the lawsuit. Well, maybe he won't now. Now we spoiled it, but that's okay. You wanted some insider secrets? Let's see. Brackish tanks. We did patio ponds, hot time with heaters. You want some background with the hot time with heaters? We got some information. Put our direction on some particular stories of famous YouTubers. We're not going to put names out because we're not here to point fingers, but you want the background information, people. We did that episode based on information of finding out that popular content creator out there decided to zip tie heaters together and then blamed companies for their malfunctioning heaters. So after we heard that from some of our friends, we're like, okay, we're going to talk about heaters. We're going to do a deep dive. And I believe that episode we actually had Les from Cobalt on there to talk about heaters and why you can't warranty them and why you shouldn't put them in a sump, even though I'm going to continue putting them in a sump. Yeah.
Jimmy: He lost his mind, Les did.
Robbz: He sure did. Next one was Cold Water Marine. Let me tell you, I did not understand. Like, I knew there was tropical marine. I had no idea that people purchased chillers in the way they do, and they don't get chillers cold enough. So once I found and someone linked me a group on Facebook of these marine cold water keepers and the lengths they go to, I had to have an expert. So I literally reached on the discord. I'm like, guys, who am I going to talk to to talk about this particular topic? We were able to get the expert on from the group trying to find his book. It was Ken again, Winger. I keep butchering names. It's not going to stop. Take a shot. He wrote the Cold Water, Marine and Aquarium biography and ecology of husbandry. And it blew my mind. The idea that people made chillers on that really just floored me. And from that, we got a bunch of people saying how they started their own they made their own chillers. And that one, I think, inspired a lot of niche people, after which you wanted a background on information on that one. I began looking up mini fridges and made my own little chiller out of garden hose and a mini fridge I bought on Facebook. It does work. We did conspiracy episode podcast, and that's when we started getting messaging, people sending their own dolphin stories. If you haven't listened to that podcast, jimmy loved the hell out of dolphin stories.
Jimmy: Still can't sleep?
Robbz: Yep. And we can't give away too much information. But on our Patreon page, there's the extra video of a gentleman that has a love life with dolphins.
Jimmy: Disturbing.
Robbz: Definitely. Check it out.
Jimmy: Disturbing.
Robbz: Patreon.com aquarium, guys. A lot of fun.
Jimmy: It's disturbing.
Robbz: Then we had a exclusive interview about the Felix Smart aquarium controller, and this ended up being it changed to now they're using it for much more than aquariums. Of course. They're using it for plant growth, and it's getting real big in the pod industry. So there's your little extra tip there. Saving Money podcast is probably number three most successful podcast. Because again, the algorithm, how do you save money in the podcast? And suddenly we get clicked on. That was a lot of fun. Another background. This is now we're up to episode 50 something. We've done a lot of advertisements through the length of this podcast, and the most popular advertisements we've ever done is for Joe Shrimpshack. Now people ask me, it's like, how do you guys come up with this? Does Joe request these things? I want to tell you that Joe was a very good sport. And I want to thank Joe for the time that he was on the podcast, sponsoring the podcast. And every single one of those Joe just gave, didn't he said, just make something up. Here's your promo code. Figure it out. So I sat down with the community and those of you on Discord that were helping me through those days. It was all of you that came up with those ideas. You guys were the ones that wrote the scripts. The fans on the podcast were the sick bastards that came up with all of the proctology commercials. There was one, Jimmy, where you were pissing into a toilet and you pretended that you were doing a water change and talking about how big your shrimp was.
Jimmy: I don't remember that.
Robbz: Oh, it was fantastic. We've done a lot of very inappropriate and spontaneous advertisements, and every single one of those were basically completely written by the fan base. Bless you. And if you got advertisement ideas, we still have sponsors that are very willing to agree to those because of the success of the Joe Shrimpshack ads. There are times even where Joe told us, yes, the promo code was working, but I got people coming into my store where they're supposed to be a family environment and asking about how big my cholo wood is. So he was being a very good sport with us along those advertisements. There's your background, Jimmy's, just looking down, like, I don't even want to admit to some of those.
Jimmy: Know, as soon as you start talking about Joe's advertisements that we did, I immediately go to the Flowerhorn episode. And for those of you who have not been on YouTube and checked out the Flowerhorn animated song that they did after this episode, you definitely should, because it is world famous.
Robbz: Episode 60, we had an episode dedicated to Flowerhorns, and that one took a lot of research. I actually went to a lot of different groups, talked to a lot of different people, and said, hey, who in the world am I going to talk to? That's just the bees knees that knows so much about Flowerhorns. And they're like, you need to talk to Jay. I reached out to Jay. Jay's been on a lot of videos. He's world famous. He's won championships and competitions for Flowerhorns, and he was very willing to come on. I did not expect it. He was a good sport. And he came on, and after the podcast, I leaned in. I'm like, do you want any of this cut? I can cut out whatever you want. I'll send you a copy. And he says, you know, I'm still trying to contain my laughter. Just send it. I was shocked that he just let us ship that out, talking about what's the perfect cock, the girth. You don't want a deflated cock. And we just rode home on that whole interview. None of that was planned. I had no idea the term cock before that episode because, again, I've had Flowerhorns a few times, but I'm not an expert in flower horns. And it got so popular that we had a gentleman come on the podcast doing the Cock Song. Well, that turned into a music video. It was literally like a cartoon music video with, like, SpongeBob fish characters. You heard the song on the podcast, but we'll have a link in the show notes of the Cock music video as well. The cock song music video.
Jimmy: It's very good. We should play some right now.
Robbz: Just a little clip.
Jimmy: All the ladies want me and I.
Robbz: Know that it must be because I got a great big car good goddamn talk about plant fertilizer. Badscaping ideas. This has actually started people messaging me on new badscaping ideas. And I think I want to take one of the people's background ideas and make a dill tape. So if you haven't listened to us before, rob's me. I like to, especially my famous friends, go to their places. Like, I did this through Ohio Fish Rescue. Real story. I had a glass dildo that I put when I was at the Ohio Fish Rescue for a week. And before I left, I put it into one of their main aquariums in the background. And for like, four or five episodes, when they scanned through the tanks, there was a glass dildo in the back of the Ohio Fish Rescue's YouTube videos. The idea is that you leave it as a prank, and then they take that dildo and it's like, chainmail. They'll pass it on to their next friend.
Jimmy: You mean pay it forward?
Robbz: Pay it forward, yeah. So hopefully that same dildo is halfway around the country by now in another aquarium.
Jimmy: The most up sisterhood of the Traveling pants, it is.
Robbz: So I have purchased my wife knows. And every time she looks at the statement, she's like, Why are there dildos on the statements? Because buy a lot of glass dildos.
Jimmy: Yeah, I found one of my tank at home.
Robbz: You found one at your tank? I have done. Like, all my local friends have got one. I even had a person that messaged me later saying, oh, Rob's was here, and he just took a picture of a dildo in his tank. I go to Jay's place in Chicago, I leave him one. I left one at Phil at Tame Waters. I left one at Joe Shrimpshack. Wherever I go, these things go. And now people are wanting me to just make an actual dildope. So I might do a 20 gallon aquarium and decorate it with just dildos.
Jimmy: Oh, my wife did say, don't come over on Thanksgiving.
Robbz: I got the invitation to my fridge. You can't return a card. Hell, no.
Jimmy: Leave the dildo home.
Robbz: Leave the dildo at home. Oh, then we know the rest of the story time episodes. The Thunderdome episode got a lot of controversy. We have Alexander Williamson from Fishery YouTube channel on and he told us the Thunderdome story and he talked about it on his podcast. And that actually turned into a great discussion on education, on why you shouldn't just swap fish together and hope for the best and do your homework first. Give them places to hide. The whole thing good came out of the storytime episode. Jimmy. I'm floored.
Jimmy: Something good came out of something.
Robbz: Yeah, something good came out of a storytime episode.
Jimmy: Yeah. That surprises the shit out of me.
Robbz: Yeah. Tissue cultures. Fishes of the yeah. Yeah, you keep laughing.
Jimmy: Ironico. Ronnico erotica.
Robbz: Rob knows exactly why Jimmy was gone during that episode. He doesn't know the joke.
Adam: That was horrible episode.
Jimmy: This one you were tell me about.
Robbz: Yes.
Jimmy: Where these guys were politically incorrect.
Robbz: Yes. Just keep going here. We talked about prices after COVID we did another interview for Christmas. And the one I want to note here is seahorses. We had Alyssa's seahorses on.
Jimmy: That was great. I enjoyed that.
Robbz: And that brought Jimmy back to his childhood. About ordering seahorses dwarf seahorses mail order catalog.
Jimmy: Yes. Several times did that. Jimmy hasn't had erectus since he was a younger man. I take my rectus right now and knock you off that chair. Southern erectus or the northern erectus? The northern. The one that's straight up, if you know what I mean.
Robbz: Little background of that episode. She was a trooper, let me tell you. That person worked seven days a week shipping out and taking care of the seahorses. There's not a lot of people who do it like she does. And very busy person. And she cleared her calendar to come and join us. And when she came on and heard the Penny story from Adam, she was truly heartbroken. Like, it bothered her to no end. So know that the Penny story is. Real for Seahorses, and we got it right from the Seahorse trainer's mouth. We SNA set up to fail. That one. Got us a ton of heat. We talked about different products that we believe were intended to be manufactured to fail, and that was one of, I think, the finest of Adam's soapbox moments. Right, Adam?
Adam: Okay.
Robbz: Okay.
Jimmy: You just woke Adam up.
Robbz: I feel like after you do a soapbox, you just blot it out of like it finally left you, and now you don't have to think about it anymore.
Adam: Pretty much.
Robbz: If we're therapy for you, then have at it, buddy.
Adam: Well, I do things that you guys need to know about, and I just say that what comes to mind.
Jimmy: There's some things that you do late at nights I don't need to know about, so quit telling me.
Robbz: Yeah, I got a note from one of the fans here, Rob's. Couldn't pronounce a fucking thing in that episode. Yeah, still can't.
Jimmy: What episode was that where you got so frustrated that you kept on using the Internet to say it? What was that? You remember?
Robbz: That was the eel episode from the Deep Fry Conspiracies podcast that I re uploaded.
Jimmy: God, that was funny.
Robbz: Yeah.
Jimmy: What was that word?
Robbz: A soptocypolis or something? Like was it was something awful, and I just used YouTube to play it. It was so good.
Jimmy: A softalopolocus.
Robbz: A sopalopolocalocus. One of the podcasts that I missed is we did a wonderful podcast talking about how fish oh, no. It's up next about how aquariums should be at galleries instead of just pet stores. They shouldn't just have a square box. They should show how the end product is, how they get this wonderful place. I believe it's watercolors. I'm getting the exact name because I know how to pronounce watercolors. Aquarium Gallery special Guest Ben, Charles and Amy they have their own podcast.
Jimmy: It's very successful, very good.
Robbz: Check it out. Their store is better. They do this intense four to six week quarantine process after that, and after the podcast, I had to lean in and be like, guys, you really quarantine. And they're like, Actually, it's worse than what we described. You're kidding me. Like, no. We charge a large amount for fish, but we know that those fish are solid and are never going to come back. And if they do come back, we are guaranteed it's their water. Like, they come back, bring a test. The water is crap. Yeah. They know for a fact those fish are rock solid. All right, well, they're not lying, certainly. Check out that podcast. One of the listeners here, Pagan Swordsman, said, that Aquarium Gallery episode got me listening to their podcast as well. And I'm glad to hear it, because that's another wealth of knowledge. Oh, boy. We did clownfish, which I thought was fantastic. We got Matt from Coral and Amazon's magazine again, matt Peterson, Patterson Peterson, however you guys want to butcher it and he talked about how he was essentially lucky enough to win an auction and start these designer clowns trends with his maroon clown that he still has in a jar. And yes, he was on discord. And I believe it was after that podcast, it was two parts.
Jimmy: It was dead in a jar.
Robbz: It was dead in a jar. And that man, he comes on alive on a podcast. He stays up probably for the next three 4 hours after the podcast, in the middle of the night, drinking with us on discord. He's fun to party with even on discord. He was hardcore COVID because I had some real health conditions that would probably cost him his life if he actually interacted with COVID And he partied hard on discord with us. Greater Cleveland Aquarium. I think this is the one that we talked to and we reached out to them. And I will be candid, these people were troopers. We got one of the experts from the aquarium to come on the podcast and talk to us and they were going to do it as the aquarium, like wearing the hat of the greater Cleveland aquarium. But then the person that was in charge of marketing listened to our storytime podcast and heard that Adam bleached out Blue Ring Octopus and wanted to make it very clear that this podcast does not represent the Greater Cleveland Aquarium and instead is just represented by the one person who joined us in the podcast on her own private time. Because the aquarium could not be associated with people that would bleach out a aquatic critter no matter how venomous it was.
Adam: Where am I supposed to bring a blue ring octopus in northern Minneapolic? Goddamn Minnesota. Okay, rant time again.
Jimmy: I gave you my wife's ex wife's address, dumbass. That's where it was supposed to been delivered.
Adam: Sending it to her.
Jimmy: Knock knock.
Robbz: Who's there?
Jimmy: Squid on her.
Robbz: Wait before you get on your soapbox, Adam, just to explain this. So the marketing director knew that they couldn't be associated with us, but she loved our podcast and outside of what she had to do, told us it was a good podcast and she still wanted it to happen. But again, they couldn't because they were going to put out a big PR blast. They're going to front page us on the local area that they were on this thing on their website.
Adam: They're going to have sorry I ruined.
Robbz: Their they were going to have handouts at the aquarium. The whole thing like a big PR blast saying, hey, we're paying our expert, the aquarium will be represented. And they were going to shout us out and then it all got thrown away.
Jimmy: Way to go, Adam.
Robbz: You had to bleach your octopus.
Adam: I live in goddamn grand rapids of Minnesota at the time, an hour and a half from civiliza.
Jimmy: When I was.
Adam: Stung by the goddamn lionfish. Julie herself called me on the phone and said wait.
Jimmy: Oh, best day ever.
Robbz: Yeah.
Adam: I'm like, my arm is going numb, and it's on my left side. And she says, well, if it gets any worse, you might be what am I supposed to do with a goddamn boomerang that will definitely kill you.
Jimmy: You could throw that at my ex wife into her face like a freaking boomerang.
Robbz: We got a message from one of our listeners. They said, Treat it like floridians do. Pour gasoline on it, strike a match and let the raccoon burn, and then.
Jimmy: Throw it in the swamp for the anacondas to eat in Florida.
Robbz: You cut out there. Say that again?
Adam: I said, first of all, they're not found in Florida.
Robbz: Blurring octopus.
Adam: I have no problem with octopi. I like octopi. They're better than nut job people. Better nut jobs. They're better than those sugar glider. Weirdos.
Jimmy: Wow. You're hating today.
Robbz: Wow. If you'd like to sponsor Adam's blood pressure medication, please go to Patreon Aquarium guys, and put in your notes that that money goes to his blood pressure medication.
Adam: Actually, when she was on the podcast, I have notes on how to keep the little bastards in the tank, because I like blue rings, and I'm going to buy some eventually because they're like, what, $50 wholesale? They're less and sell me some, so I'm going to get some. But now I know how to keep them in the tank without them biting people and killing them. That looks really good for a store. Oh, I have a dead customer due to a Blu ray killing them.
Robbz: I want to make this clear, all right? I did not put this information out there. We're giving you background information you don't know about episodes in our history. This is episode 100 we're celebrating here. This is me thanking the Greater Cleveland Aquarium because they were good sports, and they could have easily said, we're just not doing this, period. They let us do it in the only way they could, and that is more than anyone else would have done in that same situation. So thank you. You guys are fantastic people, and what you do is God's work.
Adam: I have literally called Zoos for some of the shit that I would get in my store, and they don't even know how to deal with it, and yet okay, here's a story that nobody knows about. I got a phone call one time from Duluth, and a goddamn cobra got out of the guy's cage. This guy had a room full of goddamn venomous shit, and they're like, oh, the cobra is open, and it bit him. I get the phone call. Not the goddamn zoo, not the people in the cities. The pet store owner in Grand Rapids. Goddamn, Minnesota. And I'm supposed to be the one that you're the bad guy for bleaching the octopus. What the else am I supposed to do with it? You can't let the normal people have it because they're all goddamn stupid. I've had Death Stalkers come into my store. I've had rattlesnakes, and nobody gives a shit. I'm the one that deals with all this, and I know it's dangerous, and you can't let normal people have know this was before the Internet.
Jimmy: And so you put it in your back room and sold it to special people.
Adam: Exactly. Or I just kept it in the back room and fed it.
Robbz: Well, God bless you, Adam.
Adam: And you bleaching a tank with how am I supposed to take octopus out of a tank? And it was the good live rock. It was the shit that you got from the wild that they chiseled off the goddamn side. That's how I got it. We don't even get that shit anymore.
Jimmy: Now, you know what happened is that cobra got out, and they're like, no.
Robbz: You got to call Adam.
Jimmy: They call this guy the spitting cobra. He's going to know what to do.
Robbz: Next time I ever want to try edibles, which is never, I'm calling you, Adam. That's I'm going to say, Adam, what do I do? I don't know. Oh.
Jimmy: Is it edible Tuesday? That's what's going on.
Robbz: Grass cobra bit me. OOH.
Adam: No, what I'm saying is I get phone calls on weird, dumb shit.
Robbz: It's great.
Adam: And I'm the one that has to deal with it, and then I'm the bad guy because I have to deal with the problem.
Robbz: Submit your weird, dumb phone calls directly to Aquariumguyspodcast@gmail.com. You will be played on the podcast. All right. Questions and ethics are next. Another hot button topic.
Jimmy: We're really going those what are ethics?
Robbz: We were really going hard on that one. I am not going to repeat what happened in the episode. Just know that the next three weeks of my life were answering you sons of bitches. All right. Trying to deal with the repercussions from that episode. What we talked about, I know, is hard to listen to, but it's real life. And some of you window liquors out there had a problem with it.
Jimmy: You bleach one octopus, and then you got to do Questions and Ethics.
Robbz: Just we lined them up. No one knew about the octopus, though, so this is new information. They now know what happened. So we were already in a spicy bad mood, and we decided to just really hit them hard with a good one. We talked to Darters. We talked about what's going on in Hawaii, which, by the way, there'll be another episode coming out with it's no longer called PJACK. It's now low, Jack. Oh, hold on.
Jimmy: Did I pronounce that right? Hey, Adam.
Adam: Yeah?
Jimmy: You probably should double up on the medication, dude. Just saying.
Adam: No, I'm not even medicated.
Jimmy: I'm saying you should.
Adam: Do you know how good I have been? I didn't even yell at that dipshit at Petco.
Jimmy: I know, but no, I just grabbed.
Adam: My shit and walked out the door.
Jimmy: We will go over there and make their life miserable later on in the week.
Robbz: So just hold we promise, Adam. We promise.
Jimmy: We'll come down there and roll roughly him up or whatever, what it was. He 15. I probably could take it.
Adam: Maybe 17.
Robbz: All right. Do you know who am again, what's going on in Hawaii? We were lucky to talk with the Pjac, now known as the Pet Advocacy Organization, essentially. Not essentially. They are the pet lobbyists. So they are everything that PETA isn't.
Jimmy: God bless them.
Robbz: God bless them. So we were on there talking about the shutdown of species and harvesting for the aquarium hobby and whatnot in Hawaii and the changes there. We have another episode that he's going to come on here after episode 100. So check that out. Yes, that one was a bit rough. You want a little behind the scenes on that one? We're getting connected. And if you ever enjoyed a discord live session, there's a lot of us being retarded, trying to get the jitters off and telling jokes and whatnot. And one of us that evening said something they didn't know that the mics were on. We thought that the mics were off, and we said a normal joke for the evening. And immediately Bob leaned in. Hey, my daughters are here. That'll be enough of was that you changed the entire it was not me, really? And it changed the entire pace of the conversation.
Jimmy: Was it me?
Robbz: So it helped clean up our act that it wasn't me. That's all I'm going to go with. You guys can play guessing games after that, Dan.
Adam: I'm usually pretty careful.
Robbz: In fact, you weren't there, Jimmy.
Jimmy: Hey, that's why I didn't get in trouble for once.
Robbz: That's why you didn't get in trouble. Talked about burnout and eternal reefs, which, by the way, still think is a creepy thing. If you want to have your ashes cremated, they can put it into a different type of cement mixture. Cement mixture, ball. And they create reefs out of you. Which turned out, yes, it's all fun. And we tried to use a little tact because, again, we were talking about people's loved ones in this podcast. But there's no way that wasn't a fantastic interview where we had some good chuckles. Even after that, after we got off the podcast, he was laughing. He's got to have to write some of our jokes down. He thought they were pretty decent. We had a great time after the podcast with that, and people were very interested in asking different details if they could leave memorabilia in it of their grandmas or have some creepy picture. And everybody got real morbid on, like, what do you want to have on your tombstone?
Jimmy: Yeah, it was interesting because the reason this came up is that one of our friends lost a loved one, and she wanted to be put out there in the reef. And that's what happened. And I thought it was very cool. We talked about it. And Robbie got a hold of him. And it was very interesting talking about this particular thing. If you pass away and a lot of people are being cremated these days because it's a cheaper but what do you do with the ashes? I mean, do they sit on your counter at home and you look at them every day? A lot of people will bury them. But then they came up with this idea of mixing it up with the cement and putting it into the ocean to create a reef for fish.
Robbz: He was pretty clear that we were the people that definitely asked questions that they didn't ask on public broadcast the platforms before. So we're going to ask everything. We're not going to hold back just because it's a sensitive issue.
Jimmy: Imagine dying and your fish keeping friends. Turn you into a frag plug.
Robbz: Oh, my god.
Jimmy: Better than a butt plug.
Robbz: Think about it. Honestly, never. Robbie.
Jimmy: I got to rewrite my will.
Robbz: Get right on.
Jimmy: I'm just when Robbie goes turn me into a butt plug so I can be in a pain in the ass one more time. Yeah.
Adam: He'll be turned into a dildo, a glass.
Jimmy: That's what I'm taking. I'm going to take Robbie's ashes, and I know I'll be able to get them because there'll be lots of lots of ashes. And we're all going to take them and mix them up in a glass dildo so it looks like freaking Christmas. We don't want to those sparkle things. And I'm just going to run and put them in everybody's aquarium. Robbie's, one last fu.
Robbz: There you go.
Jimmy: To everybody.
Robbz: Next one was episode 88. We had an episode on piranhas. I've been wanting to get that done for a long time because there's a bunch of misconceptions about piranhas. We were blessed to have the world's best expert. In my opinion and in many people's opinions, that was a good one. I'm going to butcher your last name. Forgive me. Frank. Frank. It's just Frank, guys.
Jimmy: Just say frank.
Robbz: Frank told some stories and how he had laws change in different states, how he did education campaigns. When Jeremy Wade, the expert of river monsters, when they wanted to know something about piranhas, they called this man.
Jimmy: Right.
Robbz: He is the foremost expert. And he unfortunately passed away from kidney failure shortly after the podcast.
Jimmy: And I think he did verify that. Piranhas are delicious. They're a big fish that are eaten in the Amazon.
Robbz: Yeah, he gave us all different types of information that literally no one else would.
Jimmy: Didn't give us any recipes, but no.
Robbz: I think he did mention a few after the podcast. That man is a gem. One of our personal favorites, going a wee bit further on the list, talked about sumps different details of our favorites. We did a podcast on Internet stories, and Jimmy was really creeped out on that episode. I did the Internet stories and all the prep work for it. And when Jimmy sat down and we co recorded the podcast, that was 100% his actual first time ever hearing any details about these things. And that last story about the Hampton hampshire. Hampshire.
Jimmy: Hampshire.
Robbz: Hampshire gave me under. Okay, real talk here. I watched the Jeffrey Dahmer thing, and then I found this. And after that podcast, I got such goosebumps up and down my arm about that dude. It just creeped me the hell out. Like, he was just like four steps away from putting people in a Hampter.
Jimmy: Nah, he's probably just really into C lab. Just think about it. Yeah, I would.
Robbz: Real, real creepy shit. So check that one out. Then we decided I got permission. Our friend Trent Janky wanted to do a podcast on his own. He saw the fun that we're having with Jim in the basement in Adam, and he's like, I want a piece of the action. He's big into making fun of conspiracies, so I helped him start up the Deep Fry Conspiracies podcast. Jim and him still do it. He was just in here a couple days ago recording another episode for that.
Jimmy: Adam's often on with us, too.
Robbz: Yeah, Adam's on there more than I am, that's for sure. I haven't been on there many episodes.
Jimmy: Adam is quite knowledgeable when it comes.
Robbz: To creepy government conspiracies stuff that's going.
Jimmy: On with the worldwide money situations and things that are going on. So it's been quite interesting.
Robbz: Yeah. So if you listen to rant here, just imagine how good it is over there. So check it out. We posted an episode that I wrote for their podcast of how I believe eel reproduction is just beyond a conspiracy theory. So check it out. Then we talked about tentacle nose placos, which I also got. I think it was, I don't know, like a kind of karen emailing me back saying how I shouldn't be calling them tentacle nose. And now I'm going to call it that forever. So. Thank you, Karen. That message in, was it an actual.
Adam: Person named Karen or just no, no.
Robbz: It was just what I would express to be a Karen that wanted to complain about how we handled it.
Adam: Yeah, she can go.
Jimmy: You know what? We'll double your money back two times. Nothing. Still nothing.
Robbz: Still nothing, people. So that was a lot of fun. Budget fish room background on that one. So I've been trying to choreograph an episode on how to do a fish room. We've done fish room in the past and talked to different people on different interviews about fish rooms, but I wanted to talk about how to save money specifically on a fish room and really focus on that. And I was curating a lot of stuff. And one of my favorite videos was Michael Wentworth on All Things Fish. Big fan of his. It's a very small YouTube channel that's now really gaining ground. You need to check it out. This man's going to be much, much bigger quickly. Big fan of his. He gave it where it wasn't segmented. It was no bullshit. And he gave you exact results. It was everything I wanted that no one else would give me. And I'm like, ah, there's no way I can get him on the podcast. Reach out. He's a fan of ours for real. He said, I've been listening to you guys for a long time. Nothing would make me happier. Came on the podcast and he talked about some of the projects he was doing. And at that point is the moment that I decided because of Michael, you want background on this? Is that I'm going to use my fish room to breed fish that Aaron need. So I drove all the way to him down in was it Sioux City Pass? No. Well, what Pass?
Jimmy: It was down in Iowa.
Robbz: Was it? Bottom end of Iowa? I can't remember. It was a big city. It was just drove forever. Came back with some of those lima, Peruse. I'm going to get this. It's cryptohirus. Nanoluteus oh, you did it, bud.
Jimmy: Everybody take a shot.
Robbz: Yeah. So I got those and I've now bred hundreds because of that long ass trip. Driving for two days. Well worth it. We had Larry Schenkel on the podcast recently. Larry is a gift to fish kind. If you ever have a chance to meet him in person, buy that man a drink. I've been friends with him on Facebook. He's been a friend of the podcast for a long time. The man has an amazing fish room. His wife is all helpful with it and loves the passion herself. Those two help, I believe, sacramento Aquarium Society, they put on and he just dedicates all his free time and had his own store. This man is a true treasure. Just happy to have him on. I want to find excuses to have him on again for no reason. I could sit there and talk to that man forever and melk out different details. I think one of the ones we got that we actually published on the podcast was if you leave a nightlight in your fish room, that for him. And what he was doing was stopping the young getting eaten in tanks.
Adam: That was one of the better pieces of advice we'd ever gotten.
Robbz: Yeah, just a great deal. And the most recent, what you need on hand and in packs and invasive species that I did a long time ago with a gal from Fish untamed and re uploaded that and you'll be seeing a bit more. We've now been taking podcasts, putting them on our patreon page. They're unfiltered, meaning we haven't censored anything and gone through the editing process.
Jimmy: We're not going to censor this one, are we?
Robbz: We're going to do our best. Going to do our best. There's going to be a lot to censor, so forgive us.
Jimmy: It's going to be adam starting and then ending seconds later.
Robbz: It's just going to be a bless, you guys. You guys have been fantastic. We have hundreds of you on Discord. We have a very active community. We have a lot of great things that have happened from the podcast. I've started a local fish club. We've inspired other people to do local fish clubs. It's been something that I haven't understood we could do. How do you feel, Jimmy? Don't cry at me.
Jimmy: I just feel like we're trying to make a little bit of a difference here with everybody. We've talked about it a thousand times. But with the aquarium people dwindling because nobody gives a shit anymore. We're just trying to drum up some interest, make it fun, and make a lot of new friends. And that's what we've done. After a hundred episodes, we've made a lot of new friends. And that's probably the most important part that we've done, for sure.
Adam: Adam I get to come on here and rant, and I get to learn a lot of neat things from different people. I mean, I like to learn. There's actually been so much stuff that I've learned, it's not even funny.
Robbz: Give us give us, like, two of your favorites.
Adam: Well, okay. So the Pleco King guy, that was interesting as hell. The piranha guy. That was really good. The one that we did with the book, the project, piaba, the Octopus Lady again. I mean, the Seahorse people, all of them are good in their own way. And they teach us. Every single one has, like, one trick or tip that you didn't think of or didn't know of.
Robbz: Yeah.
Jimmy: Honestly, every episode you learn a little something which you can help benefit your fish room and take it a little bit further down the road.
Robbz: Yeah. Imagine having something as critical as how to dose your tank with salt. And you're getting a piece that just hasn't been published on blogs, hasn't been put on YouTube videos, or can't because of some sort of censorship. We're lucky to keep the platform like we are and having be sponsored by you guys to keep it going. Our biggest bottleneck is editing. Trying to afford editing, each episode costs us just for the editor. I was going to pay a professional editor to do it. We're looking at north of $150 an episode. And I've been able to do some editing. We've had people volunteer. I've been able to pay some stipend to people that have been doing editing. But it's our biggest bottleneck. And your support helps us. And we'll continue doing it even if we don't get support. We think that this is our hobby's calling.
Jimmy: Plus our wives like us.
Robbz: Get the out of the house right now. They're both partying. Not going to lie to you.
Jimmy: Exactly.
Adam: Mine's just happy she doesn't have to listen to me.
Jimmy: Yeah, I can see that. Totally see that.
Robbz: Adam all right. Any other last notes, gentlemen?
Jimmy: I got nothing. I just really appreciate the time and effort that everybody's put into this podcast and especially the listeners. I want to thank you guys for putting up with us. If you have some great ideas, let us know. If you got some really great ideas, we're not paying for them, but we'll take them. So onward and upward till the next episode.
Robbz: Thanks guys, for listening to the podcast. Please go to your favorite place where podcasts are found, whether it be Spotify, itunes, Stitcher, wherever they can be found, like subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content like this.
Adam: Jack it off under the water. You can do the jackoff thing in his mouth and I know damn well I know how to jack off. You just lift it up and down like you're jacking off and it will self suck.
Robbz: Buttholes have ribbon tighter.
Jimmy: Didn't you tickle the balls a little bit? He paid me a nickel for every knuckle I shoved up the cat's ass.
Robbz: Full throttle. Piaba piaba.